Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday June 19, 2011 @08:05PM
from the die-20-in-the-sky dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like approval to build a memorial to E. Gary Gygax has been granted in Lake Geneva City, Wisconsin. The Gygax Memorial Fund is still taking donations for the memorial that may begin construction as early as later this year. I (like many on Slashdot) spent many years of my youth using Gygax inspired creations as an excuse to socialize, roll dice, and eat chips at impromptu gatherings before computers intruded on the RPG realms."

Actually it'd be cool if you could level up and when you came back each time, you could learn more information about Dungeons and Dragons. Afterall if someone tries to teach you all about D&D at once, you get overwhelmed. So it'd be a natural tutoring device. Finally if you beat the final boss: Gygax as a Lich, you get to unlock a door which leads into several chambers where you can play actual D&D with some people there. Hey its hard to find a game of PNP D&D nowadays, how cool if people ju

Well, at least I'm not designing it. There'd be at least one grue involved.

Though it definitely paved the way for PC role playing games, Zork has F-All to do with Dungeons & Dragons.

There are probably Priests and a myriad other religious leaders around at the time that would lump any RPG in as tools of the devil, but they were wrong about it all. I'm surprised they are rallying against this proposed monument to Gygax.

Roleplaying and computer games are not the same thing. Sure a lot of computer games and MMORPGs bill themsleves as roleplaying games but that's not the reality, since there is practically no roleplaying in them. Many people play these games and think they are getting the next generation of roleplaying - they are not, they are getting computer gaming. The two experiences are as different as chalk and cheese, although many computer games are built on roleplaying game foundations, WoW is basically the Dungeons

I may be splitting linguistic hairs here, but for my money full-fledged memorials are reserved for humanitarians or political, scientific, and military heroes. Gary Gygax may have done a lot to legitimize and expand the role-playing hobby and even the fantasy genre at large, but ultimately his work was in entertainment, albeit entertainment with legitimate and interesting anthropological/historical roots.

Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax tha

John Fucking Wayne. Our family would build our own memorial to that man.

Every family reunion for as long as I can remember... there would be a fight over John Wayne. The rest of us had bettintg pools over him.

One relative was a real Macho tough SOB. The Duke? You don't insult the Duke and walk away.. you crawl away.

One relative was a flaming gay man. With conspiracy theories.

I won the pot one year by guessing how many glasses of wine and at what time the Duke would be accused of being gay and part of the grand homosexual conspiracy in Hollywood and how many minutes it would take for us to have to hold the first relative back from killing the latter relative.

They have to care what I'm comfortable with if they want my support in building memorials, or if they want me to care about the memorial once it's completed.

Other than that I'm not demanding that anyone care, except that every person has some level of influence over what is acceptable and I'm putting in my small opinion. Not to mention that contrary opinions are usually quite valuable in avoiding serious missteps, even if all they do is help the majority refine their preexisting opinion.

There is no excuse whatsoever for modding my last comment a troll. It was patient, clear, and civil to a fault, other than pointing out as an aside the passive-aggressiveness and general pointlessness of the phrase "no offense".

Just because I disagree with you does not mean that everything I say is a deliberate attempt to piss you off.

As for the first one being modded flamebait, please recall that there is no "-1, I disagree with the poster" moderation option.

Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax than I am with a marble statue of John Wayne or Madonna.

Thinking that Gygax doesn't deserve a memorial doesn't disqualify you from geekhood any more than hating BSG and Babylon 5 would, or thinking that VB is the ultimate programming language would. Not knowing who he is (or any of the other things I mentioned) on the other hand, barring relative youth, definitely would disqualify you.

Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax than I am with a marble statue of John Wayne or Madonna.

Thinking that Gygax doesn't deserve a memorial doesn't disqualify you from geekhood any more than hating BSG and Babylon 5 would, or thinking that VB is the ultimate programming language would. Not knowing who he is (or any of the other things I mentioned) on the other hand, barring relative youth, definitely would disqualify you.

Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax than I am with a marble statue of John Wayne or Madonna. Prima facie, I don't see this as anything but another example of going too far in deifying celebrities and glorifying entertainment at the expense of more important things.

You're probably also against the Robocop statue in Detroit, aren't you? Philistine.

You mean that famous one at the John Wayne Airport in California? Or the one of him on horseback on Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills? Or the one in the Cowboy Musuem? Or the one at the future $5.5m John Wayne Birthplace Museum And Learning Centre?

[statue of] Madonna.

Then never visit a catholic country.

and glorifying entertainment at the expense of more important things.

Dude, they're taking public donations. It's not like they're somehow taking statues out of the mouths of starving children in Africa. I promise you people piss their money away on stupider things than a bunch of geeks memorialising s

Let's not forget that Gen Con, the only real draw to the area for geeks for many years, moved out of state back in 2002. It's not like the site is going to be a draw for people to come to the city, or that he's had any economic or social impact on it in decades.

I have to admit though, if I were passing through I would totally visit the memorial and scream 'Black Leaf is dead! Get out of here, you don't exist any more!'

Since Gary's death a number of former TSR employee's and Gary's family have been organizing GaryCon in his honor. As word spreads each year, the attendance keeps growing. While it will likely never match GenCon, there is now a reason for old school gaming geeks to visit Lake Geneva.

That is pretty cool.

Plus, all the cons & stuff leaving the Lake Geneva area, and Hasbro making money was done *after* Gary was forced out; not his fault.

Reminds me of this old post [slashdot.org] and my small contribution [slashdot.org] to it. I had to rewind quite a bit to recognize how fundamentally D&D shaped my model of reality. It allowed kids to test the waters of having an adult level of power, responsibility, and open-ended freedom of action in what was effectively a hostile wilderness; a world with rules but where the rule of laws of nature, God, magic, and morality were called out explicitly and which overrode the rule of the law of man, in contrast to how those laws subtly-to-overtly shape the law of man in the modern world. And all in the days before computer simulations of the same.

I'm not sure why people mention that something is tax deductible. If it's worthwhile, that should be obvious regardless of it's tax status. As for the financial aspect, a deduction isn't a serious cash value unless you're quite rich; as I understand deductions they only reduce the amount on which you owe tax, and thus return to most people not even 30% of the cash outlay on the original, deductible expense (depending on the tax brackets through which you move as you calculate your deductions). I suppose you

If you own a home, your mortgage interest deduction generally exceeds your standard deduction (at least for the first decade or so), so tax-deductible whatever becomes more significant. Even more so if you're also self-employed, and pay the flat 7.5% self-employment social security tax on top of your regular federal tax.

I meant that it was RPG's that introduced me to the problem of what happens when the GM *is* unskilled, as in a classic pitfall to be avoided each and every campaign.

Then later, musing on it, I saw some IRL connections at the symbolic level. Monty Haul caught up with the car companies in the form of the SUV craze. SUV's are "leveled up cars". Why own some stinkin' compact when you can have your own civillian tank? Except... other factors sent gas to $4 a gallon, and

SUVs were a logical reaction to increasing CAFE standards that didn't include small trucks. They allowed car companies to offer full-size vehicles without having to invest in increasing the milage of their vehicles.

Range Rovers actually were heavy enough to qualify for tax credits as a "work truck" because of their weight, making them very affordable for anyone that was able to claim the car as a business expense...

I hope the memorial succeeds. I believe Gary Gygas deserves one. I also believe Dave Arneson should get one. It is often glossed over that Dave Arneson was the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. I have read different postings concerning the origins of Dungeons & Dragons, and many of them point to the main idea of it was created by Dave Arneson, and Gary came along and said that it could be made into a product. Then Garry spent a long time categorizing the rules and expanding them. What a great game it was!

Not quite right.Dave came up with the fantasy aspect, some of the basics of the magic system, and about half the overall idea; Gary came up with the combat, concept of mapping, and about 40% of the original idea. after the pamphlets, he just wasn't involved that much. Gary never denied he came up with half of the original idea. He did get a little disgruntled when people discounted the fact that he took it from a garage business to a multimillion dollar empire essentially by himself.

When I was in junior high I went to a gaming convention where I played D&D with Gary Gygax, Tracy Hickman (author of the Dragonlance series), and Larry Niven. It was the Ravenloft module that Tracy had written, so naturally he was the DM. Watching those guys spin the fable was an amazing experience I've never forgotten, and it set a bar for fantasy gaming that no computer game has ever come close to surpassing. Maybe it's because in a computer game no one ever gets into character and brings pathos to the role. Sure, the mechanics and special effects of computers are great, but nobody really gets emotionally attached to their character (beyond how much time they spend levelling up) and...the storytelling just isn't there.

All these years later I realize that that evening with Gary, Larry, and Tracy and the other players was like our generation's equivalent of hanging out with Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg at the height of the Beat era.

I hope they build Gary a monument that pays proper homage all the young imaginations he fired and lives he influenced. RIP, Gary.

Maybe it's because in a computer game no one ever gets into character and brings pathos to the role. Sure, the mechanics and special effects of computers are great, but nobody really gets emotionally attached to their character (beyond how much time they spend levelling up) and...the storytelling just isn't there.

One of the neatest things in my lifetime was when I got my first "computer-related" job in a small industrial park a few doors down from the old TSR Hobbies. They still had a sign out on the end of the road.

I don't expect anyone to be impressed by that, but I sure found it to be cool.

While I semi-agree...a part of me thinks we should probably start admitting we're just getting old and haven't done our jobs in passing the torch down to the younger generations. Alienating some poor lad isn't going to help them on their epic quest./diplomacy.

If it wasn't for Gary Gygax, Steve Jackson would never had made Car Wars (or any of the other games he made). For that matter, Lucasarts Games would probably have never existed. D&D is the original RPG. On the other hand, the point at which you were not a geek if you were not at least familiar with the history of D&D is far enough in the past that they probably should have at least given a link to his Wikipedia page.

Not in 1978 there wasn't, especially where I was in Northern Michigan. Pretty much the only computer in town ran the local cherry growers' cooperative, good luck even touching that. History of video gaming? Yes, I guess you could have looked up who wrote Space Invaders and Asteroids, and that would have been the end of your hobby. Gary Gygax gave those of us stranded in podunk towns an outlet for our imagination and a way to find other nerds so that we were

Hey, what can I say, I wasn't a traditional geek in high school, never touched a computer until I took an intro to programming class, spent more time in the gym than studying and was a Child Development major in college (which meant I was surrounded by eligible (and willing!) women). It wasn't until later that I let my true geek emerge and ended up with a Master's in Computer Science (after a short stint as a physics major). And yes, it took me a long time to graduate, but I had a lot of fun along the way!

Some of my geek friends in the area are married and have at least one kid each, so the odds are pretty good they've had sex along the way, while maintaining weekly D&D games since they were in middle school.

To each his own. I'd recommend giving it a shot, though, if you've never played it. Forget 4th edition D&D - it's for kindergarteners. Go with either 1st or 2nd edition if you want to get a feel for the game how Gygax designe

Having played AD&D 2nd ed., and loved it at the time... I'd recommened holding onto those fond memories tightly and never letting go... but don't ever go back.

3rd was good, 3.5 obviated some of the need for house rules and was generally a minor improvement (which is as billed, so my only criticism was that it seemed a bit cash-grabby). 4th ed. is a steaming pile of goblin poo.

Personally, I recommend switching to Pathfinder. It's essentially a fork of 3.5, possible because of the open gaming license and